What’s the Best Way to Approach Huddle Spaces and Small Meeting Rooms?

The workplace is changing, and offices around the world are starting to move away from traditional conference rooms. While large conference rooms equipped with top-notch technology can be useful for client meetings or meetings with your whole team, they can also lead to scheduling conflicts or unproductive meetings. In today’s modern world, there is a more efficient way to host productive meetings.

Enter: the huddle room. Huddle rooms are smaller spaces designed for teammates to easily jump into ad-hoc conversations and brainstorming sessions. These and other types of small meeting rooms have become increasingly common as organizations begin to turn to open floor plans and remote work.

While there are tons of benefits to installing huddle rooms, it may be difficult to envision what the endpoint landscape may look like. Let’s dive in to the best approach to building environments for huddle spaces and smaller meeting rooms.

Huddle rooms are designed to enhance collaboration on the fly. There’s no need to reserve a conference room or send detailed invites with a list of conference lines - all you have to do is send a quick message to the coworkers you’d like to huddle with and get to work.

While open floor plans have become quite popular, they can be distracting for some employees. Huddle rooms are able to help cut back on some of the added noise. When taking a look at your own office landscape, look for spaces that you think would best accommodate about two to five people: those are the huddle room sweet spots.

Next, think about how you’d like to equip your rooms. Ideally, huddle rooms should have at least a small table, a few chairs (or beanbags, up to you!), a whiteboard, a conference phone or other device to communicate, and a monitor to interact with remote workers. While these spaces are small, video conferencing technology is a non-negotiable element. There are essentially two ways to enable simple video conferencing: either implement a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy or provide all necessary equipment.

With a BYOD rule, IT would only need to set up a monitor, camera, and speaker for users to plug their devices into. This makes setting up a huddle room exceptionally simple and easy to move around. However, keep in mind that there are security concerns with BYOD that should be considered before you adopt the policy.

The other option is to fully outfit your huddle rooms with smart devices. Some organizations like to take their rooms to the next level by installing more advanced interactive whiteboards and other touchscreen displays. Currently, Microsoft, and Samsung have devices such as these on the market, all designed to heighten interactions and bring flexibility to video conferencing. These devices simplify teamwork and can even allow you to write on the same whiteboard as a colleague that is halfway around the world. You can also mix and match devices in order to create a hub that works best for you and your team.

A collaboration bar could also be a sound investment, such as the ones that are specifically designed for the use of Microsoft Teams. Collaboration bars are an easy, user-friendly way to interact with colleagues. They combine microphones, speakers, cameras, and Teams capabilities all in one so you can deploy and manage your experience with ease. Remember: how advanced you’d like to make the room is up to you, so think about what your employees would use the most.

With remote work becoming increasingly commonplace, telecommunication is an important aspect to keep in mind as you build out your huddle spaces and small meeting rooms. If you invest in the right technology, you can collaborate with remote employees as easily as if they were in the room with you and you won’t have to go through the trouble of having to book a room just to chat with them. With a good Unified Communications (UC) strategy, strong video conferencing technology, and a huddle space, you’ll be able to sit down and chat with ease.

In addition, your remote workers will feel more supported by huddle spaces. While they’re not the ones using them in person, they’re able to connect with the rest of the office in a more casual, intimate manner. This helps make sure everyone stays on the same page, and no one gets bogged down by noisy spaces or scheduling conflicts.

Huddle spaces don’t have to be expensive. As long as you have the basics you can build spaces for collaboration just about anywhere. Huddle spaces are an excellent way to utilize all of the space in your office. Plus, those who travel or typically work remotely can easily pop in and use a small meeting room as a makeshift office for the day so you won’t have to worry about saving mostly vacant desks for them.

Another cost-effective aspect of huddle spaces is that you can make them portable. That’s right, you can use room dividers or rolling whiteboards to take your huddle spaces anywhere. With open floor plans, there will always be some sort of change happening. When you make your huddle spaces portable, you’re able to set up collaboration on the spot and don’t have to sweat about any sort of remodel. It’s as simple as that!

You are probably sick of the word, and we’re sick of using it, but think about the Millennials in your office. And yes, Generation Z is hitting the workforce, too. The younger generations have grown up with social media, smart devices, and other advanced technology at their fingertips. It’s only prudent for your business to adjust your office space to accommodate their needs. After all, Millennials are expected to make up 75 percent of the workforce by 2025. Have an open discussion with your employees so you can get a better feel for how to design a huddle room that will mesh with their preferred workstyle. This way, they will feel heard and you will feel confident knowing you’re investing in a space that will be put to great use for years to come.

After you have nailed down your approach to huddle spaces and small meeting rooms, it is time to integrate. At SoftwareONE, we understand the importance of strong, effective (video) communication. If you need help aligning your workplace strategy with your new huddle spaces, don’t hesitate to reach out. Our Future Workplace Services are designed to help you get your video collaboration system live as quickly and seamlessly as possible so your employees can get collaborating.